We are Dust and Shadow
by Calumongal
Summary: The Courier must make a decision, even before the fate of thousands is sealed. But she wasn't counting on famous Gannon stubbornness, or a trek across the Mojave and beyond in a sweater knitted by a nightkin with a ghoul at her back. (As it progresses, featuring characters and events from all four Fallout games; because what happens in Vegas, doesn't always stay there.)
1. The Catalyst

Author's Note: I needed a subject for NaNo. This ended up being my attempt, if you like it, any cheering on is appreciated. Part of this does feature some of the game's plot, though a lot of the little side stuff I skipped (because we all don't need to go through that again, and this is a fic, not a game guide). I tried to make it as interesting as possible anyways (I mean, since it's fan fiction, and we are here for fun, right?). But there were certain things I wanted to set up that just didn't work unless I backtracked a bit. And this is slightly AU as a result…I guess? (If AU means 'not making this fic boring' and 'differs from game plot after a while'). Finally, remember critiques are always welcome (I write faster if you tell me honestly what you think, good or bad, or even if you just read it and want me to keep going, or hate it and feel it needs stopping).

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Literally, nothing (well, I probably own a bagel, but that's it). That said, I own nothing to do with the Fallout franchise, Bethesda, Obsidian or Interplay. I own nothing to do with even the stupid 'cover' ff forces us to put on our stories now. As I said, literally, nothing. This is a parody, conducted under fair copyright law, in accordance with a whole lotta other laws nobody here will be reading (unless you are a lawyer, then you have too much time on your hands and should be reading more, not thinking about suing me).

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**Book I: The Road to Gehenna **

I. The Catalyst

_Where can we go_

_ When will we find that we know_

_ To let go_

_ Begin, begin again tonight_

_ -Vera Keyes_

_There is a tale told in the Mojave desert, and on the streets of New Reno and as far away as the mongrel-filled lands of Denver and D.C. It is the tale of a single Mojave Express courier, little more than a girl, barely a woman. A story divided into a thousand different parts and all of them leading to a road that none but the courier's chosen have ever walked._

_This is the road that she traveled, the story of a woman without a past and a land without a future; a tale that takes many nights to chase itself to its end. Perhaps, if one is lucky, they may hear all of it from a single voice. Perhaps, if one is also open to the lessons that it shares, they may live long enough as well. It is a yarn, so they say, worth telling. But then, is that not up to the listeners of all campfire tales? Perhaps…_

The doctor standing in front of the table looked bored, or disgruntled, or both. He gave the woman next to him a petulant look and then turned toward the girl sitting on the makeshift examining table, holding her right arm tightly to her chest as if it pained her greatly to let it move at all.

"You know I don't handle this side of things, Julie. I have important research-"

"That can wait," the woman said, her smile slightly forced. "I'm short-handed enough as it is tonight Gannon, and this is a special case. Just look at the poor girl's wounds and give her Med-X for the pain? The new shipment of stimpaks just came in and I have supplies to organize and you are more than capable."

The girl looked up at the man standing before her, trying to read his expression. He seemed weary, and slightly irritated, but also like he was trying to hide all this behind genuine concern when his eyes glanced back at the way she was sitting, hunched, upon the table.

"Very well," he said with a sigh, "it's not as if I joined the Followers to blatantly ignore where I'm needed."

"Of course," Julie answered through her smile, squeezing his hand and retreating out of the tent without another glance back.

"Sooo, I'm Arcade Gannon, and," the man said as he turned back toward his new patient, surveying the damage, "what have we here? Been to Freeside recently…at all? First time in the Old Mormon Fort? I don't think I've ever seen you-"

"I've-" the girl answered with hesitation, as if it were difficult forming her thoughts into words. "I got…there was this really angry brahmin…cow…um, and then those big bug things? Cazadores? Then a couple members of…some gang or something? Had flamers, I think. Maybe that's where the burns-"

Arcade eased her arm away from her chest, and she winced, hissing out her breath between her teeth as he unwrapped the dirty rags she had tied around it. He then turned her mangled arm slightly to inspect the mass of lacerations and second degree burns running up her fingers and forearm.

"Hmm, never been here before, I take it? Those might have been Fiends. And...Wow. That's some infection you have there. And it's broken too. Why you incapable Wastelanders don't just decide to stay somewhere without murderous chem addicts and crazed wildlife I will never-"

He tugged on her arm a little too forcefully, and she cried out, causing something furry and metallic to leap up from under the shadows of the table. It was a cyberdog; to Arcade, a very familiar cyberdog.

The dog growled at him, pushing its warm, wet nose close to his leg, golden eyes following his hands as if daring him to make another move.

"Hey there Rex," Arcade quickly countered, "you're looking lovely today, very…alive. Which your _compadre_ here isn't. And though I get your little '_cave canem_' routine, it clearly isn't helpful here, so if you wouldn't mind."

Rex gave him a warning glare and then retreated back under the table, resting his twitching black nose on his paws, looking slightly mournful.

"I wasn't trying to get injured," the girl said, filling the silence after several moments. "I was trying to find a new brain for Rex. He's really sick."

Arcade gently let her fold her arm back to her body and then fished around in a cabinet next to the table, pulling out a shot of Med-X, several stimpaks, assorted gauze, and finally bandages with some red paste. He laid these all out on a metal tray atop the cabinet and after administering the shot of Med-X along with the stims, directed his attention to cleaning off the arm and applying the paste.

"Yes, and he's a dog. You're a human. There is a big difference. He can be replaced, you-"

The girl suddenly affixed him with a glare that was both focused and determined, her gaze no longer wandering with the pain. "Seriously? Rex is my friend! He understands me and has my back, which is better than pretty much anyone I've met out in the Wasteland. Why would he be any less-"

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Arcade said, placing his hands consolingly between them. "I'm-I didn't mean it quite like that. Okay? Good. Be careful. You're obviously still in shock, raise your blood pressure too much and it won't be of benefit to either you or Rex. Which, speaking of Rex, I thought he belonged to the King? Why do you have the King's dog?"

"The King said he needed fixing. So I told him I would help, because that's what we should be doing, helping people. I need to get into The Strip too, um, and he knows some people...uh. I haven't been in Freeside for very long, but I saw the King throwing this ball for Rex in the street, and then Rex fell over…oww…my head hurts."

"Maybe you shouldn't go diving into cazador nests next time, eh?"

Arcade reached into the drawer again and brought forth a corked clay bottle, pulling the stopper out and sniffing it with a grimace before handing it to her.

"Now drink this and no complaining about how it tastes."

The girl took it gingerly with her good arm and sipped it before making a face he saw all too often when someone downed a dose of antivenom.

"This stuff tastes awful, like, worse than the smell of an entire nest of rained-on nightstalkers."

"ALL of it," Arcade elaborated sternly. "Who are you anyway? Probably won't be walking out of here for a bit anyways, and I can't just make you up a new file with 'Jane Doe' on the label. I mean, I think we already have ten of those and you really don't look like a 'Jane'. Not that Jane is a bad name but, well-"

"I, um," the girl said, finishing the concoction and setting the bottle down before moving her hand back to cradle her broken arm. "I really- Uh, it's a long story. The best I have is that I'm a courier, or WAS a courier for the Mojave Express. Most people just call me the Courier now, though I'm not too sure I like that either. Having a 'the' in your name is a little weird, if you can even call that a name. I don't have anything else, so, well, after getting shot in the head I guess it's better than something I could come up with off the top of my brain. Well, what might be left of my brain."

Arcade gave her an appraising look. "That...that was you? You're that courier who came back from the dead in Goodsprings? The one that helped out at Camp McCarran? Several NCR refugees and soldiers who've come by for help have mentioned some sort of Republic 'savior'. That...is you?"

He seemed to be unable to come to terms with the fact that the young woman before him and the already outlandish stories concerning the 'Mojave Legend' were one in the same. _This girl wasn't even- She couldn't be more than a teenager, surely?_

"How old are you?" Arcade said before he had time to stop himself. "You don't look a day over fifteen."

"Wow," she answered, "some bedside manner. But I'm starting to feel better, so you aren't a total failure. I'm seventeen, actually. And I guess I did a few things that, um, might have gotten me mentioned ? I'm unsure why they're making such a big deal about it. I just helped them find a bomb on their monorail system and then catch a traitor who was radioing co-ordinates to Caesar's Legion. I don't understand why they couldn't have done it themselves, they're so incompetent sometimes."

Arcade couldn't help himself, he chuckled and started to unroll the gauze, having finished applying the paste to her arm.

"Well, I can see why the Mojave hasn't spit you out yet, you've got a bit of a bite."

"Shouldn't I?" she answered, glancing down at her feet. "I've got burns on my legs too, not as bad as the arm though. I guess I should probably tell you about that."

"So I noticed," he said, eyeing the huge holes in her tan-toned cargo pants. "We'll get to those too. Let me get this arm in a sling and then I'll take a look. Seriously? The Mojave Legend is a barely a woman, and she has hardened New California Republic officers gushing over her like she's the next 'Goddess of the Wasteland'. This makes my day, hell, this actually makes my year."

"So, Mr. Laughs-at-Wounded-Girls, what do you do around here anyway with such a lovely wit? Surely not reassuring the ill? You mentioned you had other work to do when that doctor, Julie, made you stay."

Arcade looked away, shrugging slightly.

"I'm really rather boring. You'd get better stories from a Freeside junkie. Honestly, I just had a few skills, met up with Julie when I was younger and realized I could use them to help people as a member of the Followers. I'm-," he said with hesitation, as if trying to find the right words, "-not really a people person, even if the Followers trained me as a doctor. I prefer wasting my time pathetically attempting to concoct natural substitutes for synthesized medications used in the Fort. Stimpaks especially, though so far most of these worthless mutated excuses for Wasteland vegetation aren't helping."

The Courier nodded, and then started laughing when Rex began to lick the bottom of one of her feet through a hole in her boot, completely ruining any thoughts of further conversation.

.o.O.o.

The Courier lay curled on her left side, cocooned in blankets and nestled down on an old mattress in one of the Fort's recovery tents, the only patient currently too ill to have left hours ago. Rex rested at her feet, his muzzle propped on one of her ankles, his eyes watching the darkness. His tail thumped lightly against the bed as a figure entered, holding a lantern before it in the pitch-black of the tent. The sudden light threw the interloper's shadow long against the wall, the spikes of their dark Mohawk rising up like the needle-tops of alien mountains against the thick canvas of the tent.

"How are you doing?"

The Courier pulled the blankets down from her face with her good arm. The daytime temperature may have approached seventy degrees, but it was late spring in the irradiated desert, and the night was still far more frigid. She gazed up at Julie, and tried to recall how to fit words together.

"Okay I guess. I've been worse. Shouldn't you be asleep?"

"I'm pulling a double shift tonight, issues with scheduling. We're short-handed this time of year, it's pretty standard."

She took a seat on the empty bunk across from the Courier and the girl watched her for a moment, trying to size up the woman in front of her. The Courier had heard tales about the Followers of the Apocalypse, some good, some mixed. They had no formal hierarchy, something she couldn't really see working in the long run, but the fact that they would help her without expecting anything in return, was different. She wasn't sure quite what to think of that, or whether to be grateful or sad that she lived in a world where honest help was so rare that she doubted its authenticity.

As she watched Julie the things that struck her most about the woman were unconventional. Her kind blue-grey eyes were almost the color of a sky about to storm, and the faint lines around her mouth and on her forehead spoke of a harder life at one point than that which she lived now. Julie seemed to study her also, and hesitated before finally speaking again.

"I hate to ask you at a time like this; I mean, sleep is your utmost priority. But you can't really leave tomorrow and expect to go back to protecting yourself with an arm like that right away. And staying here after tomorrow would be useless to all of us, unless you have some variety of medical skills. So I'd like you to consider the many positions our group, the Followers of the Apocalypse, have open around Freeside. We're trying to clean this place up, provide food and medicine. Arcade told me who you were, that apparently you're starting to get a pretty favorable reputation around here and with the NCR."

"But I have to save Rex. And then the King said if I proved myself he might be able to help me get into The Strip after that. I need to talk to the man that supposedly shot me in the head. I need answers."

Julie hesitated, reached out to pat Rex on the head and he licked her hand gently. The Courier suddenly had the strangest feeling that the cybernetic German Shepherd and the doctor knew each other.

"The King trusted you with Rex, and he really loves that dog. I remember when he first bought him, all mangled up, barely alive, and asked if the Followers could help restore him. He wouldn't loan that dog to just anyone, especially if he thinks Rex is hurt, unless he knows you have a good chance of helping him. But you can't help him until you get better. And though the NCR boys may be all about marching on with the mission until you're dead, I'm the supervising physician here, and I think you need some sleep. We'll talk more-"

She stopped, smiled, and gently patted Rex on the head one more time. The Courier's eyes were closed, her breathing the even rhythm of one exploring the lands of deeper sleep. She had broached the subject, and that would be enough for now, tomorrow was another day.

* * *

A/N: Well heck that was a lot of dialogue! Don't worry, action starts soon enough, I just wanted a fairly different way of introducing the Courier. After all, Fallout is all about the characters anyway, isn't it? Maybe? And guns?


	2. I'll Get By

(A/N: I felt that one chapter was a bit of a cheat (it's short and has a super mutant), so I edited and updated two, because, believe me, there is a lot of ground to cover. I was also told (by friends reading this) that it has more of a narrative style, and that this is okay, so I'm going to just keep it that way unless readers are overly annoyed by it. Let me know what you think, eh?)

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_II. I'll Get By_

The Courier awoke to a terrible throbbing in her broken arm and realized that what she really wanted at that moment was more Med-X. She turned slowly from her back onto her left side and shielded her eyes with a sigh.

Light poured in through cracks in the tent flap; distracting her thoughts and sliding across the blankets to the packed dirt of the floor. She was still by herself, but judging by the noises outside in the main courtyard of the Fort, the world was continuing on without her at a rapid pace. She considered remaining immobile until someone came for her, but that just seemed silly. As she had mentioned to Julie the night before she was no stranger to pain and so finding her feet moments later, though painful, proved only a slight challenge. Rex thumped his tail near the base of the bed as she tested out her first few steps, the bottoms of her feet probably the only spots too hardened by calluses to feel anything. She looked back at her bag of belongings once she managed to reach the tent flap, then over at the cyberdog.

"Rex," she said, waving a hand at her duffle bag, "wait right here and watch my stuff, okay? My Pip-Boy's in there. Can you do that? I have to go find Julie."

She pulled aside the tent flap and was greeted by a sight that almost made her shut it and crawl back under the blankets, even in the noonday heat. Standing in the middle of the courtyard, carrying on an animated (and only half-intelligible) conversation with several of the doctors, was a huge, greenish-grey humanoid the likes of which the Courier had never seen. She knew what it was though, had heard enough stories about super mutants. But to see one here, talking to people? Had they gone mad?

"Oh, you're awake."

The Courier turned her head silently to see Julie headed her way with a clipboard, a change of fresh clothes, some boots and what appeared to be a capped needle and syringe. She must have given Julie a truly terrified look, because the doctor laughed and then nodded toward the spectacle next to the flagpole.

"Don't worry about him," she said reassuringly. "He's just here to drop off some spring vegetables from the Westside Co-op. And he's actually not half bad, does odd jobs around here. Doesn't like the NCR much, but then he has his reasons. Still, he's very helpful against the Fiends that decide to rush our barriers every now and then. Maybe he can escort you back out of Freeside if you're healthy enough? Your choice."

She gestured for the Courier to move back into the tent, then carefully examined her after administering a second dose of Med-X.

"I feel much better," the Courier said, smiling. "I think those stimpaks really helped yesterday, um, thank you."

"Oh, you're welcome," Julie replied as she turned back to her clipboard, the Courier slipping the new brahmin-hide hoodie over her head gingerly with her one good arm. "I'd tell you to go thank Arcade but good luck finding him, he's probably sleeping somewhere. I made him pull the double with me until midnight, and today is supposed to be his day off."

"Then I guess- Doesn't my arm need a cast? It looks like the paste is really getting rid of the infection."

"Oh I was getting to that," Julie said, setting the clipboard down. "So no name for the file?"

"None that I can remember."

"Well, I'll plaster up your arm but did you consider my offer?" she said, noting the confused look on the Courier's face. "I take it you just woke up."

"Eh," the Courier stammered, "you mentioned vegetables? I'm not horribly great with medicine; unless it's tribal remedies, but I can grow carrots! I think. My brain still doesn't work right, I guess. Doc Mitchell, the doctor who fixed me up in Goodsprings? Told me it's all there, mostly, so I'm not really brain damaged I just don't remember anything from before I was shot."

"Oh," Julie said, patting her on her left shoulder before retreating to the tent flap, "experience or not, I'm sure Clayton can teach you everything you need to grow something a lot hardier than a carrot. I'll go get the plaster and some water, you wait here."

.o.O.o.

The Courier, though still sore, but now with a cast and instructions from Julie to come back over the next few days if it became too painful, was eventually ushered out to greet the super mutant. He had settled unceremoniously against the flag pole and was enjoying the sun, head tilted back and eyes closed, as if the full force of ninety degrees of molten light felt like the most amazing thing on the planet. The Courier tipped her old cowboy hat lower, then hitched up her duffle bag onto her good shoulder and poked at him with her boot.

"Um, Julie told me you were waiting to escort me to Clayton's office?"

The mutant's eyes opened, looking dazed for a moment before he leapt sharply to his feet, glancing around at everything for a few seconds before locking his gaze on her. His eyes were brown, she realized, the whole of them surprisingly human.

"Ah, yuh, yu fobo meh."

The Courier shook her head, confused and for a moment thinking the greater extent of her overdue brain damage had finally caught up with her.

"Uh, wha?"

"I Mahsohfabish, I hak yu to Cayhoon, a-yuh?"

"Oh, um, I'm the Courier, I got shot in the head so I don't remember my name…um, so…you're…Mean Sonofa-" she stopped, looking confused for a moment, then astonished. "I'm not repeating that!"

The super mutant threw back his head and laughed loud enough to cause several of the Followers to peek their heads out of various tent flaps. Somewhere a baby started squalling.

"Eh okeh, 'ave damag thooh," the mutant answered before opening his mouth and pointing to the mangled pinkish-black stub that was the only remnant of his tongue. "Ahlk funneh buh eh okeh, noh shupeh ah yu migh hink!"

"Oh, okay," the Courier laughed nervously. "So you talk like that because something happened to your tongue? Well I wasn't implying you were stupid, you know."

_At least_, she thought as he pushed one of the Fort's big doors open for her_, he seems like a nice enough guy. I mean, I've never met another super mutant, well that I remember. At first I honestly thought he was not really right in the head.  
_

She didn't have much more time to question what exactly her first impressions had been, because a shotgun blast echoed across the cracked concrete between the Fort and a nearby alleyway. The super mutant angled himself slightly in front of her, and she saw the buckshot pepper the thick skin on his massive abdominals, some of it actually skidding off and thunking harmlessly into the asphalt. The rest bit at him pathetically, leaving little spots of crimson and blackened powder marks over the muscling.

He turned toward the source of the sudden annoyance with a growl and an unnamed thug retreated back into the darkness, looking too frightened to try again.

"Thank you," the Courier said with a sigh, looking down as Rex nudged at her leg with his nose, indicating that he thought they should keep walking now.

"Ah-huh, no bih deh, com noh."

The Courier stuck close, becoming his much smaller second shadow for the trip across the various streets of Freeside until they reached the Co-op. She realized that, despite her travels in this area of outer New Vegas, she hadn't noticed the tiny shop tucked between two other dilapidated structures, its own foundation appearing remarkably untouched. It had served another life, somewhere along the line and certainly before The Great War, as an 'Uptown Drugs', the chipped and broken florescent sign still hanging above the door. Also above the door was a plywood board, scrawled rather haphazardly with 'Westside Co-op', the letters petering off as if the writer, realizing how terrible it looked, thoroughly gave up less than halfway through.

"Heh beh spoh," Mean Sonofabitch said, "goh bah to wahingh for Feibs, okhey?"

"Oh, thank you," she replied, Rex barking appreciatively before falling over in the dirt pitifully.

The super mutant picked the dog up gently and righted him, patting him very softly on the plastic-steel composite of his brain case.

"Doheh be okhey, okhey?"

"Yes," the Courier said with a sigh, "he needs some repairs, but yes. Soon, hopefully soon, he will be fine."

She waved goodbye and he pulled open the door for her so she could walk in without having to drop her duffle bag into the dirt, making her think that if all super mutants were so helpful, perhaps the Wasteland wouldn't need her own style of help at all.

* * *

Thanks: Thank you to AbWilliams for the follow!


	3. In the Still of the Night

**III. In the Still of the Night**

Clayton turned out to be a young Mexican who ran the Co-op for the same reasons that many people set up shop in portions of Freeside, to escape a troubled past. He was none-too-specific about it, and the Courier didn't pry; but she could feel it in the way he looked her over, his eyes swiftly calculating how trustworthy he seemed to think her.

"Well, Hector could use some help," he finally said, after appraising her broken arm and the various scars, lacerations and bandages that were running across her visible forearm like a broken interstate. "He takes care of our water brahmin, Henrietta. Sometimes he needs assistance with the pump, being still small and all, though he doesn't ever want to admit it. And you can't rightly mess up watering. The workers will show you what to do, even if you only have one good arm and a, um, robot dog."

Clayton escorted her down to where Hector was hanging out in the shade of the North Cistern building, Henrietta tied carefully outside to a water pipe under the shed's overhang. He introduced them and at first the boy seemed reluctant; until it was mentioned that the Courier was pretty experienced with Wasteland roving and might have a story or two to share. The two quickly bonded after that, Hector teaching her the afternoon route for distributing water to the crops and explaining various locals that hung around the garden plots in the afternoon. It all blended into a quiet, warm evening when she and Hector finally finished by taking the water sacks off of Henrietta and he showed her where to pick out a spot to sleep. She unrolled her mat and blanket behind a banana yucca plot and curled up, Rex at her back, while Hector wandered off to a nearby campfire. The thought of joining one of the groups for introductions made her want to get up again and follow him, but that could wait until tomorrow. Right now she was too tired and hurt too much to care.

Over the next few weeks the Courier adjusted to the brief respite from the rest of her troubles that the Co-op work provided. Rex wasn't getting any better, but he certainly wasn't getting worse and she couldn't help him until her cast came off. The locals in Freeside were entertaining, she thought, though she was sort-of stuck with them. The Co-op workers even huddled around various campfires and burning barrels after the weeding, watering and spring harvesting was finished to tell what she thought were fairly lively stories. They also circulated any rumors, something that proved pretty interesting to her after such a long and lonely road from Goodsprings.

Most of the Freesiders working the plots were poor, the Courier soon discovered, and the Co-op provided them with the food they needed to survive, food they were given freely if they helped with the farming where they could. There were various gardening hubs all over Freeside that the small work crews traveled to, and also other side projects associated with them. One she took interest in was the growth, in sheltered wire cages near some of the plots, of gigantic, nearly hairless rats and huge, six-legged rabbits. They produced litters almost as rapidly as they produced usable garden fertilizer and seemed personable enough to hold her attention.

The Courier was shocked when she found that many of these workers, including Hector, had nowhere else to go. This was why they bedded down near the plots, generally within sight of Mean Sonofabitch and various roving guards or Followers who volunteered to watch over them. It was the only safety offered so that everyone could get proper sleep for the next workday. There was still the occasional attack by chem Fiends and workers were sometimes shot in the crossfire, but it was far better than having nothing at all.

.o.O.o.

She couldn't sleep. Try as she might the Courier's mat felt unusually bumpy and Hector was snoring next to her ear again, his own mat pressed close to share in her warmth. Instead, she stood up and made her way down the street out of a gap in the sheltering metal plates surrounding the planting boxes. Mean Sonofabitch was dozing next to the sleeping Henrietta, snoring also, but louder. She wondered for a moment if this wasn't what had really awoken her.

A cold nose brushed against the back of her pant-leg and she almost jumped out of her skin until she realized it was Rex. She reached down to run her hands over his ears, scratching one of his cheeks affectionately as she did so.

"Can't sleep either?" she asked him.

He looked up at her with his soft golden eyes, sitting back on his haunches and patient as any German Shepherd had ever been throughout history, cybernetic or not. His tail thumped the broken concrete.

"Well let's go for a walk then," she told him.

They made their way down the cracked asphalt between the Co-op plots and the Old Mormon Fort, glancing around occasionally when a shot rang out in the night. Five Kings were conducting some sort of dance-off outside their headquarters as she meandered around them and one of them waved at her while another blew kisses and whistled. She laughed and waved back, then continued on her way, not really knowing where she was headed. Upon reaching the gate to the Fort however, she pushed it open and peeked inside. It seemed like ages since she had been here, but Beatrix, the ghoul guard behind a line of sandbags at the entrance, waved her in.

"Well come on," she rasped, "I remember you. If you've gone and wounded something pretty again I'm sure a doc here can make it right."

The Courier looked around the various darkened tents until she spotted the emergency station's dimmed lights and Julie's familiar Mohawk. She considered going to the doctor to talk to her, but figured she was probably busy and would shoo her away. Instead, she realized that another tent on the far end had its lights on and she dimly thought that had been the tent of the doctor who had helped her originally. She walked across the grassy common area and peeked into the small open space in the tent flaps.

Arcade was leaning over an ancient book, intent, so much so that he jumped when she peeked at him.

"Uh," he said, looking up, "hello? Can I help you? You're that girl from last month, aren't you? The 'Mojave Legend'?"

She suddenly felt foolish, coming all the way over here for utterly no reason other than the fact that she was lonely, or bored, or something.

"You look tired," was all she managed.

"Oh," he said with a grimace, pushing at the bridge of his nose with two fingers under his glasses. "Excellent scientific observation. Do I owe you a ribbon for that one or can you-"

"I guess I just wanted to thank you, but if you're going to be rude I won't-"

He stopped, opening his mouth soundlessly and glanced up at her before motioning to a chair next to his study table.

"Yes," he said as she sat, "you are welcome. But of all the empirical reasons for you to arrive at my tent at two in the morning, I doubt a 'thank you Mr. Gannon you have the best bedside manner ever' was one of them."

"I," she replied, then stopped, trying to find words that fit how she felt, but failing simply said, "I don't know."

He sighed, looking back at the books. "Well. I don't believe in coincidences any more than I believe that cyberdog of yours is going to stop drooling all over everything I own. Do you know anything about plants?"

"I've been working with the Co-op workers to-"

"No, other than that," he replied, looked down at his notes in aggravation. "Clayton told me that you helped them cut back on water consumption among the beds by as much as twenty percent in the case of maize using embedded clay watering pots. You learned that somewhere, because we'd never heard of it before now, and it was an amazing idea. I'm actually ashamed to admit that I didn't come up with it. But you know some interesting things about gardening that I couldn't find in any textbook. Don't you?"

The Courier felt one of her sandals fall off and brushed her toes into the warm sand to offset the chill in the air. Rex snuffled around one of the tent poles, and she hoped he didn't decide to pee on it.

"I- As I told you I lost most of my memories when I was shot. But I remember a garden, with an older woman, my mother? We were setting clay pots that someone else made into the ground next to peppers. The ground was green, soft, loamy. Not like here at all. And I remember I liked…radishes. With salt. Do you know what a radish is?"

"Oh!" Arcade reached for another book at the bottom of a pile in front of him and nearly tipped the others off of the table.

He hastily thumbed through it and then set it open upon her lap. There was a large color plate picture, next to something called a 'lettuce' of a small red and white root with a fluffy green top and a bulbous midsection that reminded her slightly of an xander root.

"I've never seen one myself," he said, "do you remember what they tasted like? Maybe thinking about it will help you remember more about your past?"

"Like," she answered, hesitant, "sharp, they had a fiery bite. And they were crunchy, like a potato. It- That really doesn't matter though. I have to focus on finding Benny, he shot me and I need to know what the story is behind the 'platinum chip' I was carrying. And I also need to find a new brain for Rex, or he'll die. I promised the King I would, remember?"

Arcade removed the book from her lap and set it back on top of the pile. "Hmmm. And do you truly think that The Tops, Benny's '_domus dulcis domus_', will have all of your answers? That the Chairmen, his resident gang of thugs, will help you without a firefight?"

"I can use a gun."

"They don't allow them in the casinos, and therein lies the true problem. Benny is a rather, um, disreputable fellow, and he has quite a few guards. He's come here before, to the Fort, claiming The Tops wants to help us. But he always seems to walk away with more than he ever offered into the bargain. But I suppose _caveat venditor_and all that. I don't know what Julie sees in him."

"Huh?"

"Um, oh? You mean the Latin? It's an ancient pre-war language. Very fascinating actually, though it doesn't see much use anymore."

"Except with those Caesar's Legion boys," the Courier said. "Them and their '_ave_' and whatever else it is they've shouted at me before I shot them."

"Oh, don't mistake me for them. They've bastardized the whole thing. It was once an honorable language. A great many good people have spoken it throughout history. And before you ask, no, I did not learn it from any follower of Caesar."

"I'll believe the 'good' part when I see it," she countered, frowning.

He took off his glasses and rubbed at one of his eyes. "Well, what do you plan on doing with yourself now? You appear pretty committed to a path, it seems."

"I've enjoyed working with the Westside farmers, don't get me wrong," she said, glancing down at her toes. "And I will miss the vegetables, the animals, and everyone here, certainly. But Rex isn't getting better, and Benny's not getting any younger. Julie said the cast for my arm comes off in a week and then I can leave, if I want."

"And you want to?"

"I want to save Rex, yes. After that? Well, maybe I won't care so much about The Tops, I don't know. I just know that things are going to happen in the Mojave, I can sense it, and I think I might want to be a part of that."

"Well then, I believe you've sorted things out. I doubt I can be of much more help to you."

The Courier nodded and rose up from her chair, snapping her fingers at Rex, who was currently sticking his nose into a pile of honey mesquite pods in a crate near the back of the tent.

"Oh," she said, looking over her shoulder, "about that thing you were searching for when we talked last? Take three broc flowers and two xander roots chopped fine, boil for twenty minutes and let the mash set overnight. Dilute in one part whiskey, two parts distilled water and strain. Draw the resulting amount into a sterile syringe. Should offer close to the same strength as those dosages manufactured commercially, so long as you mind the measurements and pick good plants."

Arcade found his glasses and pushed them onto his face, squinting at her.

"What?"

"Stimpaks. You said you've been trying to research uses for medicinal plants in the Wasteland. That's the recipe I always use. I'm getting pretty good at herbal remedies, even if nothing else in my life makes any sense."

"Who," his eyes darted at nothing, "where?"

"The Great Khans taught me that one. They're actually really nice people once you get to know them, even if they did help Benny shoot me. I really respect Papa Khan. Good night Doctor Gannon."

Arcade was left sitting in the lamplight staring at the darkened place where the Courier and her dog had stood moments before, unable to decide if she was mad or just amazingly lucky. Finally, he realized he had to write it down and reached for a pen and a pot of ink near the top of the desk. The ink fell over in his haste and spattered across his notes.

"_Dampnas_! Of course," he growled. "Okay already, I'm going to bed. You don't have to tell me twice."

* * *

(A/N: For the reader that might wonder about the rabbits. Nowhere does it say there aren't any (I have yet to see those squirrels and lizards everyone is eating). So I just figured I'd throw them in for variety, as rabbits are pretty useful to city gardeners. Also, I know the brahmin didn't have a name. I figured she deserved one. Next update next week, probably on the 20th, gotta get it in before the world ends and all. Thank you to all of my readers. Yes, you!)


	4. So Long

(A/N: Sorry this chapter is a little late, guys. I was out saving the world with my crack team of gorgeous superspies from bloodthirsty Mayan zombies. There was no good wi-fi in the Mexican jungle, so what can I say?)

* * *

_IV. So Long_

"Well," Julie said as she gingerly removed the cut cast frame from around the Courier's arm, "it'll be a little sore and probably tire easily for the first few weeks. Good thing it's not your shooting arm I guess. Just don't get in any fistfights with the locals, okay?"

The Courier ran her other arm over the newly freed limb, noting how dry the skin was and how oddly light it now felt.

"I can put my Pip-Boy back on and leave now, right?"

"Yes, if you want. Though I do think that even the Mick and Ralph's crier is going to wonder where you went, as many nights as you've wandered up and down these streets after dusk. Arcade told me you've been keeping him awake pretty often with some interesting topics, and even helped with a formula for stimpaks. We didn't have that one, thank you."

"Oh, Doctor Gannon? He's a funny one."

Julie seemed introspective. "Yes, more than most I think. That man holds his cards close. Which leads me to my next question. Where do you plan on going? You said you were looking for more information on Rex? Arcade told me you meant to ask again but hadn't gotten a chance."

"Do you know anything that could help?"

"Actually," Julie said as she helped the Courier down from the makeshift examination table, "I do. Arcade and I were the ones that helped restore Rex when the King purchased him, as I think I mentioned to you. Arcade got his motivator restarted and I did most of the body work. I'm amazed his biological parts even survived. He was a quick healer though, up and barking around before we even finished fixing the bio-nerve interfaces to his tail. The only thing, as you've noticed, that we couldn't do was give him a mental overhaul. Brains get old in cyber units, even if the robotic body doesn't. Eventually they decay, and where in most creatures this leads to the end of life, in a cyberdog it's a repairable condition. He just needs a new brain and some fine-tuning of his robotic parts."

"Yes, but where?"

"There is a scientist northwest of here in a place called Jacobstown, Doctor Henry, who I've heard could help him. I didn't want to tell you before now though, it's quite a trip and with a broken arm, well you certainly wouldn't have survived. I really wish I could go with you, but I don't have the time or resources to just up and leave at the moment."

The Courier patted Rex's head. "Oh, that's okay. I'll go."

"By yourself?" Julie looked surprised.

"Well, I got here by myself."

"Yes," said a now-familiar voice behind her, "and we all remember how that turned out."

The Courier turned to see Arcade peering in through the tent flap.

"I couldn't help overhearing your conversation, and now I can't help thinking that I'd hate to have patched this girl up, only to have her wander away and get eaten by a deathclaw. I've been to Jacobstown, and I think I know the best route…would you mind if I take her?"

"Well," Julie said, "this is unexpected. Especially from you. But of course, you're free to go. If you feel that you can do more in the name of the Followers by taking part in this journey, then I trust you. That is, if she wants you to go?"

"Well," Arcade said, glancing the Courier's way, "I'm not exactly the begging type, you'll have to answer this however you see fit, I suppose."

The Courier was about to protest that she could do fine on her own, and wasn't dead yet. Then she looked down at Rex, who sadly wagged his tail. What if something happened to him on the way because she was all alone?

"Do I need to mention again that I'm a doctor," Arcade added, "and that you seem to be in need of one with alarming regularity? You almost lost your toes last week alone to one of Henrietta's hooves."

"I wouldn't mind someone else," she admitted, "and I guess if I do get injured you didn't kill me last time so-"

"Oh, that sense of humor again, this trip will be interesting," Arcade replied dryly. "Anyways, I'll go get my things packed. Meet you at the Fort's entrance in two hours?"

The Courier nodded, and Arcade disappeared from the tent.

Julie smirked at her, hiding it with a hand in an attempt to be polite. "Hmm... Arcade decided to travel with you. You certainly won't be bored, I can guarantee that."

.o.O.o.

"It's been a while since I've walked this road," Arcade said as they headed off down the cracked and mangled bits of asphalt in a northerly direction. "So you like traveling alone?"

The Courier considered this for a moment, pulling her cowboy repeater out of the rifle scabbard at her back and eyeing a suspicious looking rock about a hundred feet from them. As she did, they passed silently under the derelict bones of a crumbling overpass, the brief respite of the shade it provided welcome in the growing morning warmth.

"I guess. It's always just been me and the road since I started out from Goodsprings. I repaired an eyebot outside of Primm though, and it followed me around for a while until I sent it back to help at the Mojave Express office there. I can go get it any time I need it, so I guess it's sorta my companion…but it really didn't say much."

"An eyebot?" Arcade replied, looking slightly startled. "Isn't that old Enclave tech? Aren't you a bit worried it might, you know, freak out one day and turn you into a smear on the roadway? Heck of a way to go, really. Don't you think?"

The girl gave him a sidelong glance, then sighed and shrugged, reholstering her rifle when Rex took off after a giant mole rat that had just leapt from the rock.

"He's just an eyebot, what's there to worry about? Really Arcade, I appreciate your concern but you need to lighten up. We've barely left New Vegas and you're already acting like my damned mom."

Arcade watched Rex tackle the mole rat and proceed to bite into its neck.

"Lighten up?" Arcade answered. "I'm not the one fostering friendships with pre-war tech that will get me shot at. But whatever, your funeral. I said I'd lead you to Jacobstown, not die doing it, all right?"

The Courier glanced up at him, sighed by way of reconciliation and shrugged a shoulder, then started toward the now limp mole rat that Rex was dragging toward them, the dog growling as he tugged at it.

"Well nobody's dying tonight, are they? Actually, Rex just caught us lunch! You've got a ripper right? Why don't you come help me saw some steaks off for the road and I'll shut my mouth. Aye Arcade-mom?"

.o.O.o.

The hours stretched on endlessly and in silence as they walked the broken road toward the distant hills. Various small buildings and a derelict power transfer station beckoned them to leave the slight safety and relative visibility that the highway provided to explore the surrounding countryside. But the Courier noticed constant hostile blips on her Pip-Boy whenever she would scan an area, and Arcade explained that sticking to the road had always been his best bet, even if they could prove more of a target.

It was late evening by the time they happened upon an abandoned farmstead and possible shelter for the night. The Courier was threading her way through a patch of struggling maize, watching the lights of Vegas flicker to life, when the first shot skidded over the shoulder of her duster and off into the twilight beyond.

"Geddown," Arcade yelped, pulling his plasma defender out as Rex took off into the shadows.

The Courier ducked, eyes casting about for any shelter in the dimness. Finding none, she pulled her cowboy repeater off her back and crouched, hoping the shadows would at least block some of her body from sight. Somewhere off ahead echoed the sounds of Rex tearing into someone, his muffled growls and the screams of a woman punctuating the silence.

Arcade moved to her shoulder, and then gestured her around the side of the barn before firing a plasma bolt off into the darkness. It briefly lit the interior of the barn, illuminating the dancing shadows of three figures, before plowing into the shoulder of one of them and sending the wounded individual crashing into the dirt. The Courier nodded and moved, her duster scraping against her calves and her breath ragged in the cooling air as she tried to skirt the barn as silently as possible.

A large shadow in leather armor got off a shot just seconds before she ducked against the frame of the barn, wood splintering as the blast hit above her head. She attempted to turn, but Arcade dropped her attacker, having moved in upon watching him flank her. The raider's body slid heavily against the side of the building, twitching faintly but definitely lifeless.

Inside the barn, Rex still fought with one of their attackers, the audible sounds of wood hitting metal, punctuated by a muffled whimper from Rex, drifting through the broken planks of the barn. The Courier poked the barrel of her rifle through a hole in the wall, and tried to peer into the gloom. The woman Rex had originally attacked lay broken and bleeding out against the sandy floor of the barn. But his second victim, the man that Arcade had knocked back, was swinging at Rex with a two-by-four pulled from the structure, his other arm held back as if useless. She took aim at the glint of his eyes against the starlight when cyberdog and man broke apart, and fired.

Rex set upon the fallen body for a moment, taking the raider's arm and shaking it in his mouth before stepping back, panting, when he realized nothing was happening. Whining once, he bounded around the side of the barn and back to the Courier as Arcade glanced about cautiously.

"Well, it looks like that was the last of them, then." He holstered his pistol and stood up.

The Courier slipped to her feet as well, dusting off her knees. "You know, it would be nice to find a decent place to crash once in a while that didn't have anything and everything already there wanting me dead."

"The Followers have a safehouse not far from here," Arcade answered. "We could keep going, stop there. It's only a couple miles away last I remember."

The Courier considered the barn, then walked over to the raider that had fallen against the side.

"These were Vipers," she said, noting the insignia of a broken snake notched into the leather of one of his shoulder guards. "I've fought a few of them. Pretty tenacious. Know anything about them I don't?"

"Only that they have some sort of shamanistic tribal hierarchy." Arcade joined her, then knelt to search the man's pockets for anything of value. "They aren't exactly the most friendly bunch, which you've undoubtedly noticed. They drink snake venom, worship some sort of giant serpent. You know, the usual post-apocalyptic-nonsensical-anarchist's-paradisiac-practice of religion we're all so familiar with now? Makes Caesar's god, Mars, look relatively tame."

The Courier had no idea how she felt about praying to a huge snake. She didn't really pray, except in muttered explicatives whenever somebody got off a lucky shot aimed at some portion of her body. Who was there to pray to? And if there was someone, she wouldn't fault them for abandoning this wreck of a world a long time ago. Additionally, who was Mars? She filed this away to ask later, under better circumstances.

She slipped her cowboy repeater back into its scabbard. "Let's just search them for anything of value then and head for the safehouse. I'll go check the inside of the barn."

"Hey!" Arcade said, suddenly pulling something small and metallic up into the moonlight. "You collect these?"

The Courier looked down at what he was holding out, before taking it into her own hand. It was a small bottlecap, lacquered blue, with a star on the top.

"Sunset Sarsaparilla stars? Sure, I wanna make a necklace. Isn't there a legend about those things?"

"That if you collect enough of them you win a prize? Supposedly. But really? If I were you I wouldn't hold my breath." He regained his feet as she stuck the cap into the bag at her belt. "I'll help you in the barn so we can get this over with. Lead on, Girl Friday?"

The Vipers had not been guarding much of value and so a few hours further into darkness the small band clustered in front of the door to a white adobe and steel building. On one side of the door was painted the Follower's customary 'cross-and-circle', and the Courier stared at it for a moment as Arcade searched through the pockets of his white coat until he found the key.

"You need new armor," she finally said.

"Huh?" Arcade said, looking up from putting the key into the lock. "And you think now is the time to discuss this?"

"Not really," she said as he opened the door and she slipped under his arm. "But I just noticed how much the Follower coats stand out, you can't stand out like that out here."

Arcade just shook his head and turned the key in the lock, biting his tongue against mentioning how much her lack of tact really helped her to make friends, and stand out, all at once.

The interior of the safehouse was not large, but it was more spacious than many of the actual homes the Courier had recently spent time in. She looked around at the well-organized main foyer, Rex crossing between her and Arcade and hopping up on one of the ancient blue chairs around the corner. He sighed, then rubbed his head against his paws before settling down and closing his eyes.

"Well the coats are white because most groups, excluding Fiends and some raiders, won't shoot at us. They know who the Followers are, and that we aren't out to take anything that belongs to them. Of course, I do see your point. But at this hour?"

The Courier flopped down into one of the beds in a room adjacent to the foyer. She didn't even bother to take off her duster, although she did start to kick her boots off the mattress.

"We should have taken some of that leather armor. One of those Vipers might have had something that fit you."

"Their bodies weren't even cold yet." Arcade took the bed across from her own, setting his duffle bag down under the frame and untying one of his boots.

"And therein lies the problem," the Courier said, turning her face to look at him. "We have to take what we can get out here, and you're forgetting that. When was the last time you actually LEFT the Fort? I mean, I know you think I'm just a kid...but I can actually survive out here."

He gave her a look that could've melted lead, and she turned over and away from him, scrunching into a ball and wishing she didn't hurt all over so she could go get her sleeping bag. But that seemed like too much work, since even taking off her coat felt impossible. She listened to the sounds of Arcade pulling off his boots, then the muffled swishing of his socks against the wooden floor as he left for the outhouse. The Courier was almost asleep when she felt something threadbare but warm fall over her, her sleeping bag, and hugged it close as the squeaking of springs at her back indicated Arcade crawling into his own bed.

.o.O.o.

Arcade awoke some span after sunrise with a confining roof over his head and one less blanket than he would have liked. He couldn't guess how long they'd been sleeping, but the Courier was still snoring, rather loudly, her sleeping bag smushed up into her face so that he couldn't even see how she was still breathing.

"Good morning, slacker."

He immediately flipped onto his side, reaching for his pistol under the bed before he remembered that the voice was actually familiar, and he was in a location that, barring further nuclear fallout, was likely safe.

"Doctor Luria?"

"Oh, got one right. I just stopped by to re-stock supplies, didn't expect to see you here."

Arcade swung his feet over the side of the bed and sat up, running a hand through his sandy-hued hair then down over his chin, realizing he should probably shave. The sounds of Luria opening the refrigerator behind him and moving things around echoed surprisingly loudly in the small room.

"You neither, actually," he replied. "Although, my reasons for being here are hardly duplicitous either."

"Usanagi said you'd left for the wider world, but I didn't believe it. Said you were going to Jacobstown because Julie sent you on some suicide mission with a girl and her robo-dog. Didn't think you'd ever find a woman you liked quite that much."

"She did nothing of the sort, Luria. The 'girl' in that bed happens to be the NCR's supposed 'Mojave Legend' and she's obsessed with getting a brain for Rex over there," he said, indicating with a wave toward the cyberdog that was watching Luria with interest. "Remember Rex? The King's dog? In any event, Jacobstown is our destination, yes. I guess I must feel partially responsible for this whole mess, I fixed her injuries after all."

"Or you have ulterior motives," Luria said, finishing with the fridge and throwing something into the trash can beside it. "Though far be it for me to question a doctor who'd rather work with plants than human beings."

Arcade remained silent.

"Oh," she said with a sigh. "Well I didn't come to be mean to you. I just came to restock things…and, well, since you're here, offer a word of warning. Other than the super mutant spook stories, I've heard from some of the troops patrolling outside of Ranger Station Foxtrot, that mercenaries are hanging out in that crater too. A couple NCR girls I deliver stimpaks to up there told me yesterday that they got hit on by two boys wearing salvaged Jackal armor. Both mercs were headed up the mountain. They weren't doing anything but being obnoxious, so the gals had to let them through. Watch yourself up there, okay?"

Arcade reached down to pull his glasses from their resting spot on his duffle bag. "Isn't that always the case out here on the road?"

"Yes," Luria said, "but it's been a while since you've traveled it. Just remember that."

* * *

Thanks: Thank you to my reviewer, Radio Free Death, who provided some important grammar critiques, and was of great help in reminding me to brush up on some of my usage that was slipping. Also, mucho kudos to Bishie Huntress, who is my go-to for much-needed editorial experience when it really counts. And to I'mWelsh, for the fav. and the follow! I hope all my readers are enjoying this, I can see the hits, so I know you're out there, and thank you!

I wanted to update two chapters this week due to lateness but I'm lacking in internet, so I apologize! Look for chapter 5 and 6 on the 31st, when I'll actually have internet. I'll also be grammatically updating the first three chapters to make them more readable. Don't worry, I'm not changing any plot points, just fixing some issues that were brought to my slacker-author-self's attention.


	5. Walkin' After Midnight

(A/N: It's the start of a new year, so you get a chapter in which our dumb!Courier spazzes out a little. You are welcome. Once again, thank you to my readers! I have quite a few chapters that are mostly done/outlined to the point they could be ready for posting soon, and from here on out things will start to pick up even more (it just takes a while…this is a really long fic). I also started a new job, and my internet has been pretty bad (read: none), so updating and beta-ing have been rather difficult, as has reviewing for those that have left me reviews. So if I haven't gotten right back to you with a review from something else, I will soon!)

* * *

**V. Walkin' After Midnight  
**

The air was starting to become chillier as the three made their way up the cracked remnants of Highway 157, eventually hitting patchy spots of snow amid the dusty, rolling hills. Rex bounded on ahead, chomping up mouthfuls of the cool ice crystals before burying his face in the frosty spots and rolling around. The Courier laughed, eventually chucking a snowball at Arcade before stopping, frozen, in the shadow of the most beautiful sight she could remember since losing her past.

"Oh my gosh," she whispered, looking up. "What is that amazing thing? It's so familiar and yet-"

Arcade glanced around them both, then down at Rex. The cyberdog stopped rolling and sneezed, tilting his head to the side; so Arcade looked back at the Courier and shrugged.

"What, uh, are you talking about?"

"That THING," the Courier cried, running happily toward a twenty-odd foot evergreen.

"A pine tree?"

Arcade furrowed his brow as the Courier danced happily around it, singing some sort of stupid song along with her Pip-Boy's radio, making him question the validity of her earlier 'lack of true brain damage' statement.

"So, um...uh, girl-with-no-name? That's just a pine tree. They grow all over the place up here."

"But not in the desert!" she said. "I don't remember ever seeing one before…or maybe I have and they make me happy! I don't know!"

"Well," Arcade said, leaving her to dance around the tree, "if it makes you happy, I won't argue with that. Come find me whenever you're ready to participate in an adult conversation, okay?"

"Wait," she cried, turning off her radio and racing across the dirty snow toward his retreating back. "Wait, wait, wait! Come back! I didn't mean to act stupid I just-"

"Acted stupid?"

The Courier sighed. "I suppose so. I just…that tree…?"

"It's okay." Arcade patted her on the shoulder. "Just try to remember that most people try not to freak out over ordinary things like trees, eh? I know you've lost a lot of memories, but attracting attention is not something I try to do very often, and you probably shouldn't either."

"I think," the Courier said, twisting to look back at the tree among a grove of smaller ones. "I think it really did remind me of something…something good."

"Something like home?"

The Courier moved to keep pace with him, watching Rex burrowing his muzzle into another snowdrift.

"Maybe."

.o.O.o.

The Courier looked down at her Pip-Boy's readout and sighed.

"Time?" Arcade asked, glancing over her shoulder.

"Midnight," she said, looking up into the starry expanse above. "We're almost there, right?"

"I actually see the gate," Arcade replied. "So that would be a fair assumption."

The Courier peered into the cold, foggy air that slipped down from the cap of the crater, channeled through a wall of sharpened sticks and funneled down the roadway. Up ahead the lights of a mansion-sized building flickered at her, and before it, large shapes moved in the lantern light. She almost hesitated, thinking of deathclaws, but Arcade put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"Though your caution is commendable, as those _are_ super mutants; they're friendly ones, last I checked. Remember I told you I've been here before?"

"I-," she said, hesitating and trying to choose her words carefully. "You may have proved okay at patching up a few broken things in my body, but, um, trusting you? Not entirely going to happen. I still barely know you."

"Very well," Arcade replied. He shrugged his pack up higher onto his right shoulder and headed off toward the crude fence, waving at the mutant guarding the gate. He was almost within shouting distance when something moved in the darkness beside him. In the next heartbeat the Courier's repeater was resting smoothly within her hands, aimed at the shadows, before Arcade could even turn.

"Not a wise move," she growled into the darkness.

The figure slipped into the moonlight, hands raised. Rex growled and turned around beside her, eyeing another two shadows quietly threading their way to her back. Arcade twisted slowly in the moonlight, looking the man up and down that stood before him.

"Easy, easy there, both of you. We don't have no problems and we aren't looking for trouble."

"Then what are you doing out here in the dark?" Arcade eased his hand to his plasma defender.

"A job," said one of the men Rex was growling at. "It's the muties we're after. Dunno why you'd want to come up this way, but I'd suggest you turn back before they get mad in the ensuing firefight and think you're easy prey. Hell, neither of ya is wearing any armor."

The Courier frowned at the man in front of her that seemed to be the leader. "What would you want with a bunch of super mutants that are just living on a mountain?"

"Well," he said, "it's like this. I'm a mercenary, and some of the higher ups in the NCR think that super mutants have been killing bighorners and raiding crops in the valley. Now, it may not be this group, but hey, not for me to decide or complain over. I'm here to do a job, get in, get paid. Perhaps Lady Karma will smile on me and my associates and some of the muties we kill today will be the ones responsible. But, either way, paycheck's a paycheck."

"You do realize," Arcade said, "that there's more mutants inside that fence then you could possibly have ammo for? If you had any small nuclear warheads in your arsenal, I'd say sure, you might stand a chance. But looks to me, sir, like all you have is a rifle and your boys over there don't look much better outfitted with a couple of plasma-based weapons. Plasma's slow. Have you ever tried to shoot down a charging mutant with plasma?"

"If I don't blow your head off first," the Courier added.

"I could take you, girlie," said one of the other mercenaries, raising his rifle.

She laughed. "Ya? Your leader would still be dead and my dog's aching to get real familiar with your throat. Think you could take us both?"

"All that aside," Arcade said, staring into the leader's face, hands out placatingly. "There isn't enough money in the universe that can be worth whatever some NCR bastard is offering you for this. He hadn't the guts to come all the way out here himself, so he had to hire some mercs he knew wouldn't survive just to make a scene. See where I'm going? Now if you want to be NCR's little martyrs, then go ahead, I won't stop you, and I'll even call off the PMS Avenger over there and her mongrel. But you'll still be dead. Mutants don't forget, or forgive."

The mercenary with his gun aimed at the Courier dropped the barrel and retreated a few steps, shaking his head. "Hey man, I didn't come all the way out here to be no bitch for the NCR. I got a family to feed. What you pullin' at, Nolan?"

Nolan, the leader, glanced over his shoulder then back at Arcade.

"Eh, I'm not pulling anything and you know it! We all have families Santigo, shut your mouth. How do we know this jackass is even telling the truth?"

"Why else would I be walking directly toward an entire town of super mutants?" Arcade answered.

Nolan looked over Arcade's shoulder toward the distant lights, then back at the other's face. Then his mouth set into a grim line and he shook his head as well.

"Fair enough. But I'm still owed half the caps. That mutant watching us at the gate looks threatened enough that he's been watching us for half the evening. If you guys know so much about him, why don't you ask him for a little bit of pay for our trouble, eh?"

"More like you owe me caps for wasting my time," the Courier said. "Seriously?"

"Oh just come on boss," the other merc said, shouldering his plasma rifle. "Let's go get a gecko for dinner and call it a night. Wife's been hounding me lately anyway about comin' back all banged up. She'll like that I didn't this time."

Nolan glanced at the mutant guarding the gate, then back at the girl with her rifle still raised. "Very well. But tell those muties they should watch their backs. Someone in the NCR ranks is definitely gunning for them."

Arcade let out an audible sigh when all three mercenaries were out of earshot, then turned toward the Courier. She was reholstering her rifle and patting Rex on his braincase softly.

"Well, Girl Friday, that went better than expected. Even if I did think for a moment there you were going to get us all killed."

"It's called bluffing," the Courier replied, "it's worked before."

"Then you must be lucky or-"

"Lucky or what?"

Arcade turned away again, starting back toward their destination.

"Lucky or something," he finally said. "Definitely _fortunata uel aliquid_."

When they reached the gate, the super mutant watching them ambled up, frowning as he glanced over their heads at the distant dots of the mercenaries heading out across the hillside. After several long moments of watching to be sure that they really were leaving, he glanced down at the two humans with a wry smile.

"Thank you for that and welcome back," he said, nodding to Arcade. "And welcome to you, human girl, you just saved us some trouble. Now, I do not know if you have related the rules, Arcade, to your companion. Therefore forgive me if I'm repeating anything."

The super mutant's eyes shifted to the Courier, and she realized that his face was surprisingly more mobile than that of the only other super mutant she knew, making her wonder if Mean Sonofabitch was actually abnormal.

"So," he continued, "welcome, as I said, to Jacobstown. I'm Marcus, and you will get along fine here if you remember not to stare at the nightkin. We'd prefer peace. And if you're NCR, please keep it to yourself."

"Marcus?" she said softly, her eyes drifting toward three other super mutants speaking to one another beside what appeared to be a small lake. One of them was talking animatedly, his hands moving, while his face remained strangely immobile, locked into a perpetual snarl. _So_, her mind concluded,_ Marcus is the abnormal one?_

He snorted. "Yes, I'm Marcus, a first generation super mutant. When the Master's army disbanded, I kept the name and journeyed inland, looking for a place for myself. Along the way I met others like me, others who didn't quite know where they fit in."

"Others like-"

The Courier looked up at Marcus and realized that he was smiling at her ruefully, recognizing the awestruck and slightly frightened look in her eyes for what it truly was. He grunted, glancing in the direction of her gaze as she sized up a few more of the wandering mutants, realizing they were far more of a challenge in battle than she could take on if the need arose, and then sweeping his gaze back over to her face.

"Yes," he said, "many of the mutants here are first gens, like me, although we do accept anyone else who wishes for peace. Even the nightkin are welcome-"

"Night…kin?"

Marcus crossed his arms, not in aggression, but as if he were trying to determine what she was thinking about underneath the apparent confusion.

"They were the Master's elite band of assassins," Arcade answered, nudging her with an elbow. "Their skin is tinted blue from stealth field technology usage. Just don't stare at them. Make sense?"

The Courier shook her head, trying hard to focus, and then nodded. She was cold and all these monstrous creatures were frightening her. Sure, she could think her way out of a situation well enough, but this was starting to feel-

"Woman?" Marcus said, a slight tinge of worry lacing his voice.

"Where are you from?" the Courier asked, finally realizing her voice had returned and with it a sensation of something not unlike remembrance. "Sorry. Marcus…sounds familiar."

"Hmh," Marcus said, laughing, "it may well be that you've heard of me. I've traveled many miles in my lifetime. Walked the Wasteland with a tribal from Arroyo once, ran a town, nuked an oil rig-"

_Arroyo._ Inside of the Courier's mind, the tiny feeling of recognition flared into a solid warm strand of absolute awareness. _Me…Arroyo…something about Arroyo and the radishes and the clay pots and all of these things are-_

Instead she only said, "Where is Arroyo?"

Marcus shrugged, changing topics deftly. "Northwest of here, in a place the Commonwealth once called Oregon. Heard some call it New Arroyo now, though it's still the same hill of dust and trees it always was. Though to hear that tribal talk of it, made it out to be a mecca unlike any other. I suppose it's probably grown now, that was years ago."

"Are you okay?" Arcade was peering down at her, lifting his glasses off of his eyes to get a better look at her face. She was visibly shaking.

"Yes," the Courier said. "I-I just thought I remembered something…thought something…I'm confused now…I think?"

"That appears to happen rather regularly with you," Marcus said. He then caught himself, looking slightly ashamed. "I mean, not to be rude. It almost looked to me as if you'd seen something of great importance to you vanish right before your eyes. And then such a look crossed your face again."

"I think it would be best if we went to see Doctor Henry as soon as we can?" Arcade said, waving a hand toward Rex. "We traveled from New Vegas to get repairs for this cyberdog, and hopefully at least a bed for the night? This isn't the Emerald City, I know; but hell, we're still seeking the wizard of neuroscience for a brain and even Dorothy was given a place to rest when she reached her destination."

Marcus smirked, the expression radiating into his eyes.

"You speak quite a bit of truth for being little more than a kid, come along then."

"Kid?" Arcade replied. "I'm in my thirties or don't you-"

Marcus waved him away, then started his stilted, slow progression toward the doors of the huge building before them, gesturing in the same moment for them to follow.

"Pre-war ski lodge," he explained as the Courier's eyes traveled up its sides, her steps slowing. "Few mutantfolk here use it very often. We prefer the various outer shacks, or to sleep under the stars. Our hides are tough enough the cold rarely makes it through. Now Doctor-"

To their left Marcus crossed in front of the gate to a well-sized bighorner pen. Several of the giant sheep eyed them carefully in the moonlight, their soft, golden eyes holding interest and an inquisitiveness that recent domesticity had not yet bred out. The Courier was watching a lamb nuzzling beneath its mother's belly, when a large azure palm reached gently to the baby's side and guided it to the teat it was clumsily seeking. Then an equally blue-shaded mutant face, harshness broken only by a pair of dark shades and a hole-strewn sun bonnet, poked up over the withers at the mother sheep's shoulder blades, and stared right at her.

"Why hello Jimmy dear!" the nightkin said.

The Courier gave the mutant one look and stopped dead in her tracks. She stared for a moment, saw the blue skin, and remembered in some little part of herself that she wasn't supposed to be staring. She tried to turn away, yelped, ran toward Marcus, then stopped, realizing this wasn't providing any additional safety either.

"_Jimmy_?" she replied, looking at the ground.

"Oh little Jimmy!" The nightkin left the bighorners and stepped heavily over the fence. "Come here so grandma can have a look at how much you've grown!"

"Lily," Marcus said gently, turning to face them. "These are our new guests. You might remember Arcade? Well this is his new friend-"

"The Courier," the Courier supplied, backing away slowly. "I don't know who Jimmy is but-"

"Aww Jimmy?" Lily said, shoulders slumping. "Don't you want a kiss from grandma? Grandma hasn't seen you since you were only this-"

The nightkin held out a huge palm by one leg of her denim overalls, and the Courier was caught between a strange mix of fascination, shame, and fear. She realized Arcade was still somewhere behind her, and Rex was panting against her knees again, but her whole world was focused on a thing that once again, she just couldn't explain. Marcus shook his head, mouthing 'no', and Lily sighed, retreating to the bighorner pen, leaving him to explain.

"The prolonged Stealth Boy usage in nightkin altered substantially their perception of reality, a factor the Master never intended. Many of them are actually badly schizophrenic, or worse, unreachable in their delusions. Lily…we think she might be remembering who she was once, back when she was human, perhaps? But even I'm not completely sure. She tends to the bighorners, does a wonderful job at it too. Obviously she's taken a liking to you, Courier."

The Courier did not miss the little bit of humor sneaking its way into his deep voice.

Arcade crooked an arm around her shoulders and guided her back along with them. "Just what you needed, your very own family reunion, _Jimmy_. I think such an occasion might call for me to bring cake."

"Oh shut up," the Courier said. "Or I'll start calling you 'Cade. Permanently."

.o.O.o.

Doctor Henry was working by lamplight when Marcus lead them into his study, a large room located to the right of the main foyer. A female ghoul asleep at a desk opposite him, head pressed into her paperwork, one arm thrown over her face, was snoring as Henry wrote rapidly and tersely in the glowing orb of light between them.

"Henry?" Marcus tried to announce as quietly as possible.

The ghoul jumped, her eyes opening and blinking for a second before she turned sleepily toward them. Henry looked up from his work for a moment, then nodded and returned to the computer printouts spread in clusters across the desk and overflowing the sides onto his knees.

"Hello," the ghoul said, smiling. She yawned, stretching and then got up to greet them. "Arcade, are you going to introduce the new girl? I didn't realize you had a woman in your life."

Her smile became a small bit of an impish smirk, and then she turned kind eyes toward the Courier.

"I'd shake your hand, but sometimes I know humans don't like to touch ghouls so maybe I should just tell you my name-?"

The Courier stuck out her right hand, figuring that all the ghouls she'd known had been pretty decent human beings, despite the continued hatred inflicted upon them by the unaltered human populace. _It isn't like ghoulification is catchable_, she reasoned, _so why avoid them?_

The ghoul woman reached out and took her hand delicately at first, as if imprisoning her fingers like a fragile blossom. Her flesh was warm against the Courier's colder palm, and though ragged and callused, it still bore the feel of living tissue. Then the Courier closed her own fingers, and they shared a firm handshake.

"I'm Calamity," the ghoul looked down into her. "And my boss over there, that's the doctor himself, the one I'm sure you came to see. Trouble is, I believe he's still in the middle of a breakthrough so if you wouldn't mind spending the night-?"

Half an hour later, the Courier snuggled into another bed, cloistered in a room that felt cool and damp and strangely silent. Rex slept beside her, half hidden under her nest of blankets. She poked at his nose and thought for a moment of Arcade, sleeping in another room across the hall. She would have to ask him in the morning how he knew Henry, or of this place, at all.

* * *

(Endnote: Thank you to RogueShadow1281 for the fav. and the follow, and also to all of my other readers, continuing and new! Once again, kudos to Bishie Huntress, for answering some interesting grammatical questions when we should have been sleeping. And on an aside, the Fallout wiki officially states that Lily will call your courier 'Jimmy' if they are a boy. Both times my girl!Courier met her, she was officially dubbed 'Jimmy' for the rest of the game, proving the wiki is either wrong, or Lily just can't recognize a pink dress when she sees one. Either way, judging by her psychosis, I let it pass. At least she didn't try to eat my courier, I guess. Gotta be happy with the little things, you know?)


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